Wood & Lee lawyers help companies conduct outbound trade and investment while effectively managing regulatory compliance risks under export controls, defence trade controls, economic sanctions, and anti-boycott laws.
We counsel clients on a broad range of compliance, licensing, and enforcement issues arising under laws governing exports, reexports, technology transfers, and related transactions. These regulatory frameworks include: exports and reexport controls that apply to commodities, software, hardware, and technology; defence trade controls that apply to exports, reexports, and temporary imports of defence articles and related technical data and defence services; trade embargoes and economic sanctions; and foreign boycott-related restrictions and reporting requirements set forth in anti-boycott laws.
Transaction-Specific Risk Assessment: We help companies assess compliance risks and determine regulatory requirements triggered by specific transactions and business relationships, including compliance with the applicable government licensing, reporting, export documentation, and record-keeping requirements.
Licensing: We assist companies in obtaining government licenses and other approvals such as licenses for exports/reexports of commodities, software, and technology, and technology transfers to foreign nationals (“deemed exports”); technical reviews for encryption products; approvals for exports/reexports and temporary imports of defence articles, technical data, and provision of defence services, including technical assistance and manufacturing agreements; licenses for commercial sales of certain medicines and medical devices to countries subject to trade embargoes.
Due Diligence in Corporate Transactions: Building on our broad compliance expertise, our lawyers routinely perform regulatory due diligence in the context of proposed mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and various types of cross-border strategic relationships. We help clients identify liability risks related to pre-acquisition transactions, devise contractual and other strategies to address such risks, and target specific compliance risks to ensure that future business operations fully comply with the applicable regulatory requirements. We also assist clients in identifying potential export controls issues and negotiating related security agreements.
Compliance Programs and Training: With growing emphasis on self-regulation and compliance expectations trended upwards, we help clients ensure that their internal controls effectively safeguard against violations and stay up to date. Capitalising on our lawyers’ expertise spanning all relevant regulatory frameworks, we assist clients in designing and implementing comprehensive internal compliance programs and assessing the efficacy of their existing internal controls. In doing so, we assist clients in drafting compliance manuals and codes of conduct and provide internal training to ensure compliance with the relevant regulatory requirements.
